Everyone wants to know where the new jobs will be in the future. Every couple of years, economists with the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics try to answer that question with new forecasts of job growth. N.C. State University economist outlines what the bureau says will be the most rapidly increasing occupations.

“Well, if we look at the Top 10 occupations in terms of percentage gain – not total number of jobs, (but) percentage gain, so these are going to be the fastest-growing. The Top 3 are clearly in the medical field, and they include areas like personal care, home health care aides and bio-medical engineers. These are all areas that are projected to see the number of jobs increase by over 60 percent. By far, among the three, the bio-medical engineers are the highest-paying.

“The next tier are jobs that I would say are in the so-called trade area: carpenters, bricklayers, iron workers, plumbers. These are all forecasted to have openings that are up by 45 percent. Now, in terms of the raw numbers, they’re not very big. But these are all middle-paying jobs. And the vacancies, I think, are primarily going to open up due to retirements.

“And then to wrap up the Top 10, we’re going to have veterinarian assistants, physical therapists and, interesting to me, event planners are going to be the highest-percentage increasing in jobs among the Top 10 over the next decade. And people can go on bls.gov to get a lot more detail.”

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